NerdGlam: How to Shut Down Street Harassers

When I first moved to New York and into the converted hallway I was renting in an East Harlem drug den, I went from encountering street harassment maybe once a year to encountering it about six times a day, an increase of 218,900% (really).

On the corner of 3rd and 116th, I was waiting for the light so I could cross when someone behind me said something I then found terrifying, but now find hilarious. He said:

Blanca, you want a taste of chocolate?

And so it began.

(This is a post about one method of shutting down sexual harassers. As always, concern for your own safety should be paramount, so sometimes you should probably just ignore harassment instead of attempting to be clever or improve the world for women at large).

In every neighborhood I’ve lived in in the city, the street harassment has a bit of a different flavor. In East Harlem, it was largely a playful badinage (“blanca” is, of course, the feminine of “whitey”), where a snappy reply would often actually get a laugh and put an end to things rather than provoking further harassment. In Bushwick, where I lived far from the train in a scarily-deserted part of town, men in vans would regularly slow down to my walking speed, driving alongside me and … hissing. Like snakes. Dirty, dirty snakes. In Midtown, the harassment was the meanest I’d ever encountered. Once, I left my apartment after a shower — no makeup, wet hair in a bun, sundress, flip-flops — to go to Starbucks. While waiting to cross the street, a middle-aged man wearing a lot of gadgets on his belt said — with vicious seriousness — “Fucking whore.” I was actually confused and looked all around for whomever he might have meant — clearly, couldn’t anyone see that I wasn’t trying to look good, and that I really needed espresso? By the time I was sure he’d meant me, he was gone.

In contrast, whenever I get a nice compliment — an actual compliment! — from men, I always make a point of saying “thank you” in a deliberate and audible way, so perhaps others can get the message that that’s how interactions with strangers ought to go. (Side note: most actual, non-harassment-like compliments I have received have occurred when I was wearing goody-two-shoes vintage-style dresses, or else super-sharp businesswear). A young man sitting on a milk crate outside his job once shouted, “That’s a very nice dress, ma’am!” and got a “Thank you very much.” (Is it wrong that I look forward to the day when I can add “young man”?)

Once, in Chelsea, I got a “Nice calves!” I was on the fence about that one — I turned around to identify the speaker, and he was a bodybuilder-type dude, possibly gay, so I decided it was a legit compliment, especially since I had, in fact, been lifting over 200 pounds with my calves recently. I said “Hey, thanks,” in a sort of man-to-man kind of way. Grrr!

The idea with Hollaback is that you photograph your harasser and send his picture in to the site so he can be ridiculed. The site certainly does host a number of photos of men spanking it on the subway (those men are easy to photograph, since they are both sitting and distracted). But taking a photo of a man who tells me my ass is “sweet like bubblegum” might result in, oh, I don’t know, that guy pulling out his camera phone and posting my photo on StupidChicksWhoWon’tDoWhatIWant.com or something. I think maybe the whole photograph-your-perp idea depends on your having better technology than he does. In fact, here is a post on Hollaback in which a woman complains about a creepy guy taking cellphone photos of her. You could see that we might be starting an arms race here, and a sex-technology arms race can only end with upskirt photos, and videos of your boobs jiggling as you complain.

That said, Hollaback is launching an initiative to use smartphones and a dynamic mapping system to track harassment and “communicate its impact to legislators.” So, yes. Let’s all support that.

So, in the meantime, I do have one method I use to shut down harassment of the non-terrifying but merely annoying variety. For instance, you are on a crowded street and someone says “Nice ass.” Your mom might have once told you to “just ignore” that sort of thing; saying “Fuck you” has its pleasures, but also drags you into the dynamic of shouting rude things on the street, which is not how we ideally want to live. So what I do is:

1. Stop walking, if possible and appropriate.

2. Turn to the harasser and make full eye contact.

3. Say these magic words, in your best third-grade teacher voice: “That’s not an appropriate way to talk to a woman you don’t know.”

What’s he going to say to “That’s not an appropriate way to talk to a woman you don’t know”? “Yes, it is”?

There’s something about a dead-serious moral reprimand that just emasculates men, reminds them of some actual elementary school teacher looming over them, saying “Why did you just lie to me, young man?” You know how, as a kid, there was never a good answer to that kind of question? You just kind of stammered? That’s what I usually get in response. Sometimes I follow up with the “I’m disappointed in you, young man” expression. (It might help that I’m 31, not 21, and that I do, in fact, teach for a living. And again, I can’t wait until I can legitimately add “young man.” Maybe I’ll start now anyway, just for kicks!)

If you and the harasser are walking past one another in the opposite direction, you won’t have time to get out the full magic phrase. So, the short version is simply: “That’s inappropriate.” Say it the way you would say it to a child who’s been caught picking his nose at the dinner table for the third time this Thanksgiving: you are annoyed, in command, and wish the kid would just grow up already.

You might want to practice this now, in your mind (or in the mirror!), before summer hits and catcalls multiply exponentially:

Recall a time you have been harassed. Visualize your harasser as a ludicrously overgrown man-boy who has just peed his pants, while also jumping up and down, brandishing a plastic truck he stole from another kid in the sandbox. Pathetic. Now deploy the line: “That’s not an appropriate way to talk to a woman you don’t know.” Maintain eye contact. Develop an expression that means, “You’ll get nowhere with that kind of attitude, young man. Do you want me to send a note home to your parents?”

If you ultimately get to shut down a harasser in this manner in front of others, watch as those others nod in approval!

Always remember: harassment is immature sexual acting-out, which makes him the child, and you the adult. If the harasser is taller and bigger than you, that’s all the more reason for him to be embarrassed at acting like a child. Even if he continues to act out once you’ve told him his behavior is inappropriate, you’ve still removed yourself from the “competition” he was trying to create. Despite the claims of Forever 21, adulthood is awesome, and the person acting like an adult wins.

Do you think the same tactic of moral upbraiding would work if one were being harassed by a lesbian? Have you ever been harassed by another woman if so, how did you respond?

Jen Dziura

Well, If figured that my ongoing membership in the sisterhood demanded that I just do what she wanted.

Jen Dziura

Actually, I was once “harassed” by a fortysomething woman wearing a big rainbow necklace (really — it was huge, like she had made it herself out of plastic beads from a toy store). She spoke at some length about wanting to come home with me, and how she would open my doors and wash my dishes. When I laughed and said that sounded pretty nice, she was very pleased. I think she said something like “Stay beautiful!” as I walked off.

I mean, I’m sure there are more intimidating instances of woman-on-woman harassment, but right now I’m at about a 1200-to-1 ratio, and then one instance I encountered was not intimidating at all.

Thaler

This tactic has worked for me. As I was waiting for a bus, a man snapped his fingers at me repeatedly, and probably said something as well to get my attention. I turned to him, incredulous, and said, “Did you just snap your fingers at me?” And he, now uncertain, said “Yeah…” “That’s not very respectful,” I said. “I’m not a dog.” He said he was sorry and that he didn’t know why he had done that. I ignored him after that and he didn’t try to interfere.

Margaret

A friend showed me this article a few months back and yesterday I had the chance – and the presence of mind – to use the line! It was awesome. The guys looked startled and unsure of themselves, while I felt more powerful – and, crucially, as though I had managed to keep my dignity throughout the encounter. I’ve often responded by silently giving guys the finger before, but always felt as though that was stooping to their level. Using this technique made me feel as though I put them in their place without diminishing myself. Wonderful. I’ll be sending this to everyone I know.

Razingthebra

If i’m harassed by builders, i make a note of the company tey work for and always ring up their company. Last time i asked for a written apology – i’m still witing on it but it’s time we stopped pretending not to hear these things…

That does sound like a powerful response. However, in many situations in which I have been catcalled, I felt unsafe, and this might make the situation less safe. Maybe it’s just my general fear of conflict, but it feels like a risky thing to do.